enrolled in the celestial armies, whose business was to fight against sin and misery, against wrong-doing and impurity, against injustice and lies and baseness of all sorts and kinds ; and every one with a soul in him to prefer good to evil was summoned to the holy wars, which would end at last after ages in the final overthrow of Ahriman.
The Persians caught rapidly Zoroaster's spirit. Uncorrupted by luxury, they responded eagerly to a voice which they recognised as speaking truth to them. They have been called the Puritans of the Old World. Never any people, it is said, hated idolatry as they hated it, and for the simple reason that they hated lies. A Persian lad, Herodotus tells us, was educated in three especial accomplishments. He was taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth — that is to say, he was brought up to be brave, active, valiant, and upright. When a man speaks the truth, you may count pretty surely that he possesses most other virtues. Half the vices in the world rise out of cowardice, and one who is afraid of lying is usually afraid of nothing else. Speech is an article of trade in which we are all dealers, and the one beyond all others where we are most bound to provide honest wares:
ἔχθρός μοι κάκεινος ὁμῶς Ἀϊδαο πυλαῖσιν
ὅς θ' ἕτερόν μεν κευθῇ ἐνὶ φρέσιν ἄλλο δὲ εἰπῇ.
This seems to have been the Persian temperament, and in virtue of it they were chosen as the instru- ments — clearly recognised as such by the Prophet Isaiah for one — which were to sweep the earth
